Why The Federalist’s attack on the so-called “Friend Zone” should creep you the hell out

Sweet Valley High is not so sweet when you’re trapped in the Friend Zone

To hear some tell it, there is no crueller torture a woman can inflict upon a man than to be his friend. Because, as the saddest sad men of the internet will happily explain to you at length, men and women can’t really be friends. Any woman who think she has male friends is fooling herself; all her supposed male friends have ulterior motives, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

They want to take her to the Bone Zone, in the parlance of our time, but she has put them in the Friend Zone instead, a hellish sexless purgatory that only the exquisitely charming and wholly fictional Jim Halpert on The Office has been able to escape. Such, at least, is the Friend Zone myth.

I’ve read a lot of silly things about the alleged evils of the alleged Friend Zone over the years, mostly in the form of terrible memes or scary rants on some misbegotten misogynist subreddit. But the silliest thing I’ve read on the subject for some time is a post that went up earlier this week on The Federalist, a right-wing media outlet with a heavy Christian bent.

In “Why Men and Women Can Never Be ‘Just Friends,'” Lutheran pastor and “comical video” maker Hans Fiene argues that we need to “tear down the Friend Zone” so American men and women can marry younger and “raise our sagging birth rates” so the world won’t run out of babies.

No, really.

All of us need to start having more babies or else the upcoming demographic tsunami will consume our nation, cripple our social programs, and leave us with a future so bleak that our only source of joy will be the moment we’re chosen to receive the sweet, fatal kiss of the Obamacare Death Panels, the Trumpcare Firing Squads, or the OprahCare Hemlock Squadrons.

Despite the achingly off-key “humor” at the end there — did I mention that Fiene makes “comical videos” on the side? — this argument, such as it is, is meant in all seriousness. As Fiene sees it, every day America’s hapless males waste in the Friend Zone is a day they could be making babies with a loving wife.

Being caught in the Friend Zone is an inarguable drag on fertility rates, as a man who spends several years pledging his heart to a woman who will never have his children is also a man who most likely won’t procreate with anyone else during that time of incarceration. Free him to find a woman who actually wants to marry him, however, and he’ll have several more years to sire children who will laugh, create, sing, fill the world with love and, most importantly, pay into Social Security.

Quite simply, for the sake of our future, the Friend Zone must be destroyed.

Fiene’s case against the Friend Zone is if anything even sillier than his demographic alarmism. He begins by sketching out the true horror of the purgatory that is the Friend Zone.

Every year, countless young men find themselves trapped in the Friend Zone, a prison where women place any man they deem worthy of their time but not their hearts, men they’d love to have dinner with but, for whatever reason, don’t want to kiss goodnight.

Fiene is apparently baffled and appalled by the notion that any woman might want to have dinner with a man without wanting — literally — to have his babies.

The women of America, he argues, need to accept two harsh truths: “you don’t have any guy friends and, in fact, you can’t have any guy friends” — because any dude who likes to spend time alone with a woman actually just wants to get with her.

Fiene has a rather hackneyed notion of what men are looking for in a friend — basically a dudely dude type

who shares his interest in activities such as watching movies where things explode, playing video games where things explode, or putting fireworks in things so they’ll explode.

And in Fiene’s mind, women just aren’t qualified for that position, which strikes me as a rather strange contention because, well, my best friend IS a woman, and we have spent many hours over many years “watching movies where things explode [and] playing video games where things explode.”

We’ve also spent many hours watching Project Runway, and gleefully mocking the worst dressed at the Academy Awards. Because we’re actual human beings whose interests don’t map directly onto hackneyed stereotypes of what men and women enjoy. (She does have a hard time convincing me to watch Jane Austen movies though.) Oh, and we have no interest in sex or romance with each other; we enjoy those things with other people.

But I guess I’m delusional to think she and I are real friends, because everything she provides, friendship-wise, could apparently be provided much more efficiently by another dude. As Fiene sees it, “the average male coworker, male neighbor, or male Nepalese yak herder is better at producing masculine companionship” than women. Indeed, as Fiene (or his editor) declares in a big bold subhed, “There’s Only One Thing You Can Give His Man Friends Can’t.”

And, no, that isn’t “vagina.” It’s “vagina in the context of a loving marriage,” though Fiene doesn’t put it quite that baldly.

Addressing his female readers directly, Fiene tells them that when a man signs you up as a friend,

It’s not because he wants your friendship. It’s because he wants to convince you to open up the supply chain of a romantic relationship to him, and he foolishly believes he can do so by being a loyal friendship customer. “Pay my dues in the Friend Zone,” he thinks, “and one day she’ll promote me to boyfriend.”

Fiene assures the ladies that

Just because men don’t want to be your friend, however, doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy your company. They most certainly do. They love discovering how you see the world, what you think about life, the universe, and everything. They love your kindness, thoughtfulness, sensitivity, support, and your nurturing heart. They love being in your presence when you display the wonders of the feminine virtues.

At least when those “feminine virtues” come as part of a package deal with vagina — though, again, Fiene puts it a bit more delicately.

[B]ecause God designed these [feminine] virtues to entice men into marriage, the average man will never be content to receive those gifts in a form of companionship that doesn’t lead to marriage. Quite simply, men can’t be at peace being just friends. And there’s nothing you can do to change that. Platonic chilling won’t stop your inner (and outer) beauty from pulling a man towards romantic love.

So what is to be done? The women of America need to clear out their Friend Zones — kicking the guys they don’t find attractive to the curb and marrying up those guys who at least sort of stir their loins a little.

First, he informs the female reader, she needs to address those Friend-Zoned men who don’t

fill you with the biological desire to repopulate the earth? If not, then do your “friend” a solid and let him go. Call him up and tell him, “It’s not my fault that your facial symmetry grosses out my ovaries, but it was my fault that I got your hopes up by putting you in the Friend Zone. As restitution, please accept the phone numbers of five girls I know who find you attractive. Stop wasting your time with me and go hang out with a girl who might one day bear your children.”

Apparently Fiene thinks human beings talk to each other like that.

“Conversely,” Fiene continues,

if you find your guy friend attractive, and if you see him as a man of character and heart, then call him right now and tell him that he was placed in the Friend Zone due to a clerical error. Say to him, “You make me laugh and would be a great husband and father. Clearly, you need to be on the express track to the Marriage Zone.”

So get brave. Get married. Get pregnant a bunch of times and give birth to a bunch of beautiful little future taxpayers. The time has come to fight for our future. The time has come to rebuild America’s demographic glory atop the rubble of the fertility-killing Friend Zone.

I think I’ll pass, thanks!

So who exactly is this manifesto supposed to inspire? Nothing in it bears much resemblance to the world I live in. Fiene’s resolutely heteronormative, baby-centric utopia offers nothing to the gay, bi, or trans folk I know, nor is it going to appeal to those with no interest in traditional marriage and/or children. Hell, its visions of masculinity and femininity are so constricted they don’t even fit most of the straight, cis people I know.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be trapped in the Fiene Zone, that’s for sure.

Buffy is still relevant to me. Just because Whedon is a feminist in a privileged white dude kind of way, doesn’t mean it isn’t a good show. It’s probably my favorite all time show.

Actually, I find the backlash against Joss Whedon kind of strange. I guess it’s because Avengers made him a household name outside of the cult fandom of his TV shows? I’m not saying he’s perfect or above criticism or anything but in an industry where people still uncritically adore Woody Allen and Roman Polanski as directors, the amount of vitriol he gets seems off. I think it’s just trendy to hate him for whatever reason.

@WWTH: I think the comparison you’re making is a bit off. I think part of the reason there is so much vitriol reserved for Whedon is that he is so often held up as a feminist film maker, and as such almost above reproach for his portrayal of women. He’s a dude who does it right.

I also don’t mean that Buffy can’t still resonate with people who grew up with it or who discover it. I still enjoy it! It’s just… Xander is such a Nice Guy, and I can’t get over it. I never saw it when it was originally airing, but watching it now… God, Xander, get a clue.

And I’d hope that, if this show were to be made now, Xander’s Nice Guyness would either be understood and he would move past it quicker (I seem to recall he does), or would be pointed out for the awful behaviour it is.

That’s more what I mean. The conversation has moved on. These are still important parts of it, but no longer something that is quite as relevant as they once were. If that makes sense?

I also don’t mean that Buffy can’t still resonate with people who grew up with it or who discover it. I still enjoy it! It’s just… Xander is such a Nice Guy, and I can’t get over it. I never saw it when it was originally airing, but watching it now… God, Xander, get a clue.

Yeah, he’s pretty bad the first two seasons. I think the fact that Buffy never changed her mind and started dating helps with that. And he did move on. I don’t think the show glosses over the character’s flaws too much so it doesn’t really bother me that much. He even admitted later on that he acted like an ass when Buffy turned him down. I do agree that if the show were made today it would need to be tougher on the nice guy behavior though. I actually think the lack of racial diversity is my biggest issue with the show. Especially since when their are non-white characters, it’s pretty cringe worthy. Especially the Thanksgiving episode. Anya being hilarious is the one good thing about that one.

That said, I’ve very much noticed an overall trend of hating Whedon stuff just for the sake of it. If anyone is interested in a good feminist analysis of the show, I’d recommend the Going Rampant YouTube channel. It criticizes what needs to be criticized and praises the good parts.

Was going through my LJ prior to the Great Migration, and came across this piece I wrote, trying to explain my experience with giving in to guy friends with crushes on me. May be relevant, may be crap, and please pardon the text wall [in the interest of full disclosure: I am a lesbian, but didn’t start out that way. I assure you, however, that I have had both boyfriends and mice, and know which one is less of a pain in the neck. At least when the mouse indicates it may have inadvertently exposed you to the Black Death, it’s not your fault.]:

If you give a guy in the Friendzone a “chance,” he’s going to want to kiss you.

If you let him kiss you, he’s probably going to want to have sex with you, and it’s probably going to be a horrible experience, because this is not about what you want, it’s about what he wants.

If he has sex with you, and it’s a horrible experience, because it was not about what you want, it was about what he wants, he’s going to want a relationship with you.

If he wants a relationship with you, he’s going to want it to be exclusive.

If you are exclusive, he is going to want you to stop hanging out with your male friends.

If you stop hanging out with your male friends, he’s going to realize he hates your female friends, at least the ones he doesn’t want to bang, and he’s going to get whiny every time you hang out with them.

If you give into his whining about your female friends, he’s going to start on your family.

If you stop seeing your family, he’s going reward you by moving in.

If your reward is a new roommate, he won’t clean up after himself and he will think he’s doing more than half the housework because, about once a month, he makes a desultory stab at doing the dishes.

If he sees you re-wash a dish after finding it crusted with egg yolk, he’s going to resent seeing you do any kind of housework and pout if you do it in his presence.

If you start stealthing the housework, he will also resent and belittle you for any time you spend exercising, eating healthily, or grooming where he can sense it.

If you figure out ways to conform to his standards of female beauty without reminding him that it’s a process and takes effort, he’s going to get nasty to you every time you wear polka dots or bright colors. You’re going to realize he is trying to get you to dress like his friend Gen, who wears nothing but black and animal prints and apparently just wakes up with gigantic shellacked hair and whose lips are naturally a color that you have seen advertised as “Merlot Harlot.” That’s what happens when you are a woman of true quality. Nature sends singing mice to stick false eyelashes on you while you sleep, and while we’re at it, surely Gen’s mouth never falls open when she sleeps. (Opening your mouth when you sleep is trashy and “slutty.” He read it on Reddit, or somewhere like that. It makes him apoplectic to see you sleep.)

If you dismiss his constant erections while he’s IM’ing the “woman of true quality” as paranoia and start to dress like Princess Fucking Paragon Genievieve with Her Sexy Name and Hot Philly Accent so he doesn’t take your blouse with the jabot as a personal attack, he will notice that you are spending money on frivolous things, like pantyhose, renter’s insurance, and electric bills and he’s going to start in on the constant “joking” reminders that for most of the history of the United States, any property a woman owned actually belonged to the man she was living with.

If you let his “subtlety” get to you, it’s somehow going to be your fault that the gigantic television is a pain in the ass to mount and his hi-larious japes about “the size of a man’s television is perceived to be proportionate to the size of his genitalia” start being a poignantly awkward metaphor you’re going to bite your tongue about how now you really wish you’d gotten a previously used model.

If you bite your tongue on that, he’s going to know. And he’s going to make you pay in a thousand little ways. A thousand more little ways, you mean.

If you pay those thousand little ways, he’s going to notice how you’ve “let yourself go.”

If he starts to notice how you’ve let yourself go, he’s going to paint you as a vicious abusive harpy to his friends and at his work. He’s going to have a whole “bit” about how crazy you are. Gen will wet her $700 Siberian-tiger-print stirrup pants laughing.

If you start noticing that his friends are uncomfortable with you, you’ll be mad, at first, then humiliated, then resigned. You’ll start spending a lot of time reading.

If you spend a lot of time reading, they will be the wrong books.

If you stop reading the wrong books because he feels wounded about how stupid you are, it will be too late, and he will leave you.

If he leaves you, you will be devastated for about three months (after all, he was the only friend you had been allowed to speak to for years), then so very relieved. You will start to go out more.

If you start to go out more, you will hear stories about how horrible women are, not giving their friendzoned friends a chance and only dating entitled jerks. You’ll also hear that, because your ex is a misogynistic manchild who can’t be arsed to relate to others, respect boundaries, or improve himself, and thinks that being friends with someone he thinks is awesome is a bad thing, his friend Gen has put him in…

Aunt Podger I should have phrased that “… had not had the experiences that that you used in relating that experience.” In my impulsiveness I conveyed things awkwardly. The way you organized your experience in your comment with repetition and other elements are skills worth admiring.

He seems to argue from assumption that either a/women have no sexuality and therefore no reason to discriminate on that basis, or b/ that there would be some attraction there with just about any “decent enough” male friend, if only women weren’t so picky, didn’t prefer bad boys, etc., etc.

The idea that women simply aren’t attracted to some of their male acquaintances, yet might still enjoy their company, doesn’t register.

Figured it was a typo where you left the ん off during input. But given trollboy’s hard-on for Japan, it probably wasn’t wrong either way.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Austin Loomis says:

Either way, my respect for him just took a significant kick in the gonads.

I hope it was already in the toilet what with the things Jenora Feuer pointed out, his affiliation with Nippon Kaigi and the attempts to remilitarize, his love of regressive taxation, and his overall corruption.

Brony, Social Justice Cenobite, and Ooglyboggles, it’s a long time ago, and I’m over it, and so is he. It just makes me break out in hives when people complain about friendzoning with realizing that sexual relationships take work, especially relationships that one partner is way more into than the other is.

Axecalibar: Middle Name Danger, you are absolutely right about Isaiah Mustafa, especially on the parts where the narrator gets brittle and bitter. (Um… maybe that is, “The ones with vowels in them.)

The format is a direct parody of the excellent children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff. Maybe someday, I’ll write a Where the Wild Things Are follow-up parody…

As for the problematic aspects of Buffy, I look at it like the anti-Semitism in Trollope. When you hit upon it, it’s as icky as finding half a worm in your apple, but I’m glad the art is there and I’m glad of the conversations it forces. Also, it’s good to see a high-school-aged character actually, you know, grow up. (I think Shonda Rhimes may have taken notes for the character of George in Grey’s Anatomy.)

@Aunt Podger
That was some inspired writing! Sorry that the guy was incredibly manipulative and an all-around not-nice person.

I friend-zoned a guy once. I just wasn’t aware of it until, after a couple of years of hanging out on some weekends, he stopped calling me.

And once a guy friend-zoned me. I hadn’t actually expressed an interest in him — although I found him attractive — but right away he made the friend-zoning explicit. That was fine. We had a lot of fun together, but if he wasn’t interested, then neither was I. Then he got a girlfriend — and stopped calling me. I found that pretty weird. It worked out for the best, though, because I later found out that underneath the charm he was a sexist power monger.

I will never read (Zola) or watch (Renoir) “La bête humaine”, neither hear “The Loco-motion” from Minogue, the same way, now…

As restitution, please accept the phone numbers of five girls I know who find you attractive.

What is it ? The beginning of a chain-letter ? “You receive the attention from a person you do not ‘love’, please send this person 5 tel numbers of innocent persons who never ask for that, for instant happiness (and eternal assholery). If you do not do it, horrible things will happen, like God throws you in hell, Roosh picks you up, the price of carrots rise, and so on.”

WARNING: If you don’t understand what “for the sake of argument” means, leave NOW. You will not be happy here.

I assume Fiene believes
1. Homosexuality is a choice
2. Many teens get “recruited” through homosexual encounters.

TRIGGER ALERT: I’m about to say “for the sake of argument.”

FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT let’s assume those beliefs are sometimes true. Wouldn’t it make sense that you might prevent teens from going over to the gay side by making it EASIER for them to have heterosexual sex instead? By encouraging it, even, or at least not going ballistic?

It never ceases to amaze me the fixation so many conservatives have with breeding. Not just sex but the imperative need to drive population upward. They just don’t see that EVERY. SINGLE. THREAT. TO. THEIR. FREEDOM. IS. A. DIRECT. RESULT. OF POPULATION GROWTH.

Crowding, more demand for services, more pressure for taxes, more regulation, and on and on. If you want the limited government we had in 1880, we will have to return to the population density we had in 1880.

You can write an equation and take it to the bank. POPULATION EQUALS REGULATION.

Steve, I’ma gonna assume you’re heterosexual. I have a few questions for you, if you are:

• What do you think caused your heterosexuality?
• When did you decide you were heterosexual?
• Is it possible your heterosexuality is something you may grow out of?
• Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality? Why can’t you just be who you are and be quiet about it?
• Why do you heterosexuals feel compelled to seduce others into your lifestyle?
• Have you considered therapy to change your heterosexual tendencies?

@PeeVee
No, but see, he said “for the sake of argument”. Like a trillion times. That means you can’t criticize what he said. Cos he didn’t say it. N9t really anyway. It was for the sake of argument. That makes it OK. I mean, he even put a trigger warning there, so he’s obvs a nice guy looking out for you. Dammit, stop being so judgmental!

Second, i would be a most ready, willing, and capable sperm donor , but it appears that there are no sperm donees hehehe 😝

Uh, trolly — assuming you’re still able to read this despite your ass being banhammered — the word you’re looking for is recipient.

And, given your general ineptitude with both language and basic thinking skills, I’m frankly not surprised that you can’t find one.

it’s a universal medical fact that as a general rule, human females are not capable of either experiencing physical orgasm at all — whether vaginal or clitoral

Oh dude, you really are so hopelessly clueless. Please don’t ever set foot inside a woman-owned/operated sex shop, because the sheer array of dildoes and vibrators is apt to put you off whatever garbage you’re eating.

WARNING: If you don’t understand what “for the sake of argument” means, leave NOW. You will not be happy here.

I assume Fiene believes
1. Homosexuality is a choice
2. Many teens get “recruited” through homosexual encounters.

TRIGGER ALERT: I’m about to say “for the sake of argument.”

FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT let’s assume those beliefs are sometimes true. Wouldn’t it make sense that you might prevent teens from going over to the gay side by making it EASIER for them to have heterosexual sex instead? By encouraging it, even, or at least not going ballistic?

Or is that too far outside the box?

There’s a box??? WHERE???

Oh…I see you made inane, argumentative poopy on the floor. Congratulations, I guess.

I put myself in the friendzone many times during my early twenties. And I say put myself because it was I who decided to continue hanging out with them in the hope of somehow win them over.

Life turned out to be so much enjoyable once you stop believing in such crap.

I agree. Several female acquaintances of mine have friend-zoned themselves with various guys. I always wanted to tell them, If a person doesn’t feel some kind of spark when first meeting someone, that spark’s probably not going to develop. That’s the nature of sparks — and of attraction. Each can grow. Each can die. But at the beginning, it seems to come from nowhere.

Almost completely off-topic but since people have been talking about Shadowrun :- there’s a new bundle up on Humble Bundle till Sunday (9th) which includes the PDF of the Shadowrun Anarchy TTRPG core book and the 3 Shadowrun Returns PC RPGs along with a few other things.

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.